One must ask whether the UK and the US have the leadership, moral and strategic, to take immediate steps to halt Iran’s destructive meddling.

Aleppo has fallen, almost completely, to Syrian government forces in this past week, leaving not only rebel fighters but also tens of thousands of innocent civilians stranded in a bombed-out shell of that ancient city. Humanitarian intervention failed to prevent the disaster in the first place or the summary executions that followed it.

Lord Alton says activists in Iran continue to be in "extreme danger", but will not be defeated by government violence.

Recently, a representative of the Iranian cybercrimes police took to the country’s state media to boast of the regime’s successes in disrupting peaceful networks on Instagram and other social media. This brought Western media attention to a series of arrests that had taken place in March as part of a sting operation called “Spider II.” The Iranian internet has turned into a cultural battleground where secular, pro-democratic ideas are aggressively battled by the Iranian regime.

It can be no surprise how political debate on the West’s policy toward Iran has intensified in the wake of the recent New York Times Magazine article revealing the deliberate deceptions carried out by the Obama administration to justify its nuclear negotiations and its broader policy of appeasement.

Former Cabinet Minister David Jones MP calls for greater protection of civilians in Aleppo and calls on Western nations to press Iran to end its support for the Assad regime.

The extension of the ceasefire around the city of Aleppo is a welcome development. Now the international efforts in Geneva should focus on adopting urgent, robust measures to ensure that it is fully respected.